Lifeboat Foundation

Nobody can shoot a bullet through a banana in such a way that the skin is perforated but the banana remains intact. However, on the level of individual atomic layers, researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have now achieved such a feat—they developed a nano-structuring method with which certain layers of material can be perforated extremely precisely and others left completely untouched, even though the projectile penetrates all layers. This is made possible with the help of highly charged ions. They can be used to selectively process the surfaces of novel 2-D material systems, for example, to anchor certain metals on them, which can then serve as catalysts. The new method has now been published in the journal ACS Nano.

New materials from ultra-thin layers

Materials that are composed of several ultra-thin layers are regarded as an exciting new field of materials research. The high-performance material graphene, which consists of only a single layer of carbon atoms, has been used in many new thin-film materials with promising new properties.

Stop living in the stone age and switch over to the laser razor to get the closest shave of your life. This revolutionary razor forgoes the traditional steel blade in favor of a high-tech laser that provides an incredibly close shave with no irritation.

$189.

Toilet paper hoarders, this one’s for you.

Vacuum toilets are flush toilets that use suction for the removal of faeces and urine resulting in a minimal requirement of water (0.5 to 1.5 litres). Vacuum toilets provide the same level of comfort as traditional flush toilets and they help saving costs due to the minimised amount of flush water. Due to the fact that the effluent has a high organic matter content, vacuum toilets are specifically adapted for the use in combination with separate greywater and blackwater treatment; or aerobic digestion treatment for biogas production. Vacuum toilet systems are applicable both in large and small buildings, trains, ships and airplanes.

SpaceX asks FCC for license expansion after 700,000 people register interest.

Too bad.

Nearly 500 pages of evidence were made public during the House Judiciary’s marathon hearing this week on potential anti-competitive actions by Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple. We’ve collected them here with added context and an omnibus, searchable version for anyone who’d rather not juggle four dozen documents.

Continue reading “Secret documents from US antitrust probe reveal big tech’s plot to control or crush the competition” »

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In just a few short years, the new technology is entering new realms and helping cement Shanghai’s ambition to become a global leader in the sector.

The Hackett Group at EMBL Rome explores epigenetics, genome regulation and cell identity. Recently, the scientists developed a novel CRISPR molecular tool for editing the epigenome, enabling transient modifications that can switch certain genes “on” and “off” temporarily.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that has caused the COVID-19 global pandemic makes its way into a host cell via a protein known as ACE2, which is involved in a range of physiological functions in the body.

Continue reading “Silencing the SARS-CoV-2 Receptor With CRISPR and Epigenetic Modifications” »

DeepMind this week released Acme, a framework intended to simplify the development of reinforcement learning algorithms by enabling AI-driven agents to run at various scales of execution. According to the engineers and researchers behind Acme, who coauthored a technical paper on the work, it can be used to create agents with greater parallelization than in previous approaches.

Reinforcement learning involves agents that interact with an environment to generate their own training data, and it’s led to breakthroughs in fields from video games and robotics to self-driving robo-taxis. Recent advances are partly attributable to increases in the amount of training data used, which has motivated the design of systems where agents interact with instances of an environment to quickly accumulate experience. This scaling from single-process prototypes of algorithms to distributed systems often requires a reimplementation of the agents in question, DeepMind asserts, which is where the Acme framework comes in.